Yeah, so while somewhat dry and boring, it may be one of the most significant things going down in the next little while.

I don't really know or understand any of the known details, other than like all free trade deals it is essentially altering the balance of power away from 'the people' in favour of large corporations. Iirc, essentially if government makes rules big business don't like there will be a nice process for them to easily sue the government, eg something like the safety warnings on cigarette packets in Oz, etc.

Also usually such deals effectively disallow or erode away the government to be able to provide services that could be seen as "unfair competition" to private businesses; one of the fears in Europe that free state provided healthcare will be effectively wiped out. Which is utterly fucked imho, I'd be out in the streets if that were to happen here.

Oh and that we won't get to know, much less actually debate, what's in before the government actually signs up up to it.

'I Like It When You Die' is the fourth album by American grindcore band Anal Cunt. The album was originally titled You're Gay, and the album cover was going to contain a mirror, but this idea was later changed

If you do go on the march, don't trust anyone who talks about riots, revolutions, dresses like a stereotypical black bloc anarchist or in any way appears to be encouraging violence or property destruction. They are most likely cops. They do this shit everywhere.

Andrew Little wrote:A new US study on the impacts of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement casts doubt on the Government’s analysis of its impact and highlights the need for a truly open debate on the controversial deal, Opposition Leader Andrew Little says.

“A Tufts University analysis written by two senior UN economists shows the likely loss of 6000 jobs over the next decade and a transfer of wealth from working families to corporates under the TPPA.

“It is completely at odds with the Government’s own report which was based on information from before the agreement was completed and which fails to ask one of the most important questions about the deal – how will it affect employment?

“This has been left out of the Government’s analysis or it was never examined. Either way it is a serious omission.

“John Key has shut down any debate about the merits or otherwise of the deal when an open and transparent debate is in the country’s best interests, both on the economics of the TPPA and its erosion of our democratic rights.

“The TPPA allows other countries and big business to have a say on how laws are made in New Zealand. We lost the ability to restrict sales of our homes to overseas speculators even as Australia and other signatories carved this right out.

“Labour supports free trade but this agreement goes beyond trade and is an attack on our democracy. That is why we cannot support it in its current form.

“There can be no trade off between citizens’ rights and economic interests. We don’t put a price on our democracy. It is not for sale,” Andrew Little says

'I Like It When You Die' is the fourth album by American grindcore band Anal Cunt. The album was originally titled You're Gay, and the album cover was going to contain a mirror, but this idea was later changed

Fuck that. What the hell is going on now. This is some Smith's Dream/Sleeping Dogs type shit. I've been around for every NZ regime since the middle of the Muldoon era and this is the worst government we've ever had. There was something really sinister about how Key was pretty installed in the National Party overnight in the first place. I've also never seen such a sycophantic media willingly build a personality cult around a prime minister before. I was only a wee lad of five or six when Muldoon was chucked out, but you look at archive footage you can see that the fourth estate regularly tore him a new arse. Not so now. I'm increasingly fearful that NZ is descending into a kind of passive aggressive authoritarianism. It is sick culturally and politically and there is a nasty vibe in the air.

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It's fucked the way National drop people into seats/parliament. Todd Barclay in Clutha/Southland is a good example... I've heard he's pretty much incompetent at everything he does, and had a pretty horrific reputation amongst young women in Wellington... but is adorable to the old biddies in the rest homes of Winton and Balclutha, and more importantly, highly impressionable and malleable.